


Give Me Peace

by I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own



Series: The Road Less Travelled [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Nephilim!Magnus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 08:41:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18220817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/pseuds/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own
Summary: Magnus struggles to come to terms with his new life, Alec makes a promise, and a deal is struck





	Give Me Peace

**Author's Note:**

> Why can't I write this stupid essay?!? 
> 
> You do need to read the Road Less Travelled By before reading this one! :)
> 
> I did say Magnus would have a breakdown...

_Give me wings, give me peace_  
_These are the things that I need_  
_I'm tormented, broken, and shamed._  
_Are you listening?_  
  
_Give me shelter from the storm,_  
_I know it's a lot to ask for,_  
_Considering how recent_  
_I've piled the dirt on your name._  
_Are you listening?_  
~Classic Crime, Salt in the Snow

* * *

Word spreads around the Shadow World quickly, especially when Magnus doesn’t exactly try hard to keep his new runes from being on display. Questions arise, but Magnus has always been quite good at diverting peoples’ attention when he doesn’t want to speak about something. He does, however, take the time to sit with Clary and learn the Portal Rune, relieved when it works for him the first time.

Four days after his world is thrown off its axis, again, he finally decides he’s had enough and he needs to get away. He knows Alec’s expected in a meeting with the Clave all day, so he leaves a note on Alec’s desk, and one on Alec’s bed just in case and portals far away, almost surprised when he comes out the other side in one piece, still getting used to the feel of portalling Nephilim style.

He looks down at the sand beneath his feet and sighs, raising his head and starting to walk along the beach, but already he can tell this place isn’t the sanctuary it used to be, can’t feel the magic in the air as the waves lap against the shore. He gives it ten minutes before he angrily portals away. But he finds no relief in the mountaintops either or the caves in the bowels of the Earth, and in desperation he closes his eyes and portals somewhere he probably definitely shouldn’t.

“Magnus, I didn’t expect you in today.” Letica exclaims, stepping around the bar to take in the sight of him, staring particularly at the accuracy rune visible on his neck. “So, it’s true, then?”

“Yeah.” Magnus answers, with a nod. “I intend to get myself very, very drunk. I do still own this place, don’t I?” he asks her looking around at the empty club, knowing it won’t open for hours yet, she snorts and rolls her eyes.

“What you do in the confines of your own properties are your business, but I will be cutting you off eventually.” She tells him, before handing over a bottle of gin. “Please don’t make me regret this.”

“I’m a big boy, Letica, I can hold my liquor.” He promises her, before grabbing the bottle and heading to the bedroom he keeps in the back offices. He sinks down in the armchair beside the bed and toasts the bottle in the air. “To new beginnings and painful endings.” He says, before taking a long drink.

* * *

Alec is just finishing up the meeting with the Clave representatives when a fire message appears over his shoulder, he turns to catch it and frowns at the message.

_You’re needed at Pandemonium, urgently._

_~L_

He reads the message through twice before quickly jumping to his feet, making his apologies to the representatives and all but sprinting from the room.

It takes him a lot longer than he’d like to reach Pandemonium and fight through the crowds beginning to form as the club opens for the evening. When he gets inside, he searches for Letica, Magnus’ right-hand woman in all dealings related to the club, but he can’t find her.

“They’re in the back.” Alistair states, as he heads past Alec towards the bar to pick up his shift. “You know where to go.”

“Thanks!” Alec exclaims, rushing to the back rooms and down to the end, where he knows the bedroom is, he knocks on the door, and it swings open, to reveal Letica sitting at the edge of the bed, cradling Magnus' head in her lap, her hand glowing with magic as it rests over his chest. 

“You’re here.” She exclaims when Alec steps through the door. “He’s drunk too much, he’s too far gone for me to fix it with magic! He was choking on vomit when I found him, I cleaned his airways, but I can’t… I don’t want to hurt him!”

Alec takes a breath in and quickly moves across the room, dropping down onto the bed and pulling his stele from his pocket, pulls Magnus’ sleeve up to activate the Iratze on his wrist, then swiftly unbuttons Magnus’ shirt to activate the sober and nullification runes drawn over Magnus’ abdomen.

“He’ll be fine.” He assures a frantic Letica.

“I told him to be careful.” She tells him, but Alec just sighs and shakes his head.

“He probably didn’t even realize how much this would affect him.” Alec explains, a self-deprecating smile on his face. “I should have thought of it, too. Shadowhunters are affected by mundane liquor, warlocks really aren’t, not in the same way. He’ll be fine, though. I promise.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, I should get back out there, keep an eye on things. Let me know if-if you need me.” She says, Alec nods his head and watches her leave, the door closing behind her with magic and Alec sighs again, getting up to flick the light off, before returning to the bed and curling up beside Magnus and pulling his Nephilim close.

“We need to get better at communication.” He whispers, lying in the dark, watching the glow of the runes as they do their work.

* * *

Magnus wakes up minus the pounding headache he’s expecting and frowns in confusion to find it’s still dark, and his confusion only grows at the warmth pressed against him. He tries to remember if he did something incredibly stupid and utterly unforgivable last night but is certain Letica would never allow him to ruin his life that way. Then he breathes in and relaxes, smelling Alec’s familiar cologne. He snuggles in against Alec and stares into the middle distance, considering the changes in his life, and what the future might look like for him until Alec stirs against him.

“Good… possibly morning.” He greets, with a smile, but it slowly fades when Alec doesn’t respond. “Alexander?”

“You’re not happy being Nephilim, are you?” Alec finally asks, Magnus closes his eyes and sighs heavily, before opening his eyes and manoeuvring himself in Alec’s arms, so he can face him.

“I’ve been a warlock my whole life, I learned very quickly that Shadowhunters, Nephilim, were not my friends and now… I’m not a warlock, I am a Nephilim. So, no, I’m not happy. But I don’t know what I feel, Alexander.” He admits, shaking his head. “Loving you is… so incredibly easy, natural. Being _like_ you is… it’s hard to swallow.”

“Why?” Alec asks, brow furrowed as he tries desperately to understand.

“Eight hundred years of fearing for my life nearly every time I ever encountered a Nephilim.” Magnus answers, pulling away from Alec, who lets him go without complaint. Magnus gets out of the bed, standing staring away from Alec, he crosses his arms over his chest and sucks in a breath, letting it out slowly. “For eight hundred years, I’ve lost more friends than I can remember to the Shadowhunters. To those who decided it was their job to keep us in our places, like somehow we were worth less than the dirt under their feet because of who our mothers or fathers happened to be.”

“Magnus-“

“I ignore the things you do for the Clave that I disagree with because that’s what I accepted when I decided that I was going to pursue you. When I decided that I was going to let myself love you, I accepted the darkness that comes with your job, that comes with who and what you are.” Magnus admits, turns towards Alec, a desolate look on his face. “The first time you hurt me, because of what you do, because of who you are, I dealt with it, made peace and came back to you, because that’s what I had already decided I could- _would_ live with in exchange for loving you.”

“The agony rune.” Alec whispers, rubbing his hands over his face and shaking his head. “Magnus-“

“I accepted the darkness in you, Alexander, because I love you, and it is a part of you. Now… now I have to figure out how to accept the darkness in me. Have to figure out if I can make peace with becoming that which I’ve thought of as my enemy, for my whole life. Somehow, I have to move forward like the last eight hundred years never happened. I don’t know if I can.” Magnus admits, his voice breaking and he closes his eyes against the tears that are already burning. His breath hitches when Alec’s arms wrap around him.

“Keep your eyes closed. Trust me.” Alec whispers into his ear, before Magnus’ feels a burn at the base of his neck, where he’s certain Alec drew the rune for glamour. He takes a deep breath in and doesn’t open his eyes, trusting his lover as he has since the day he met him. Alec’s hold disappears completely after a few moments, but Magnus can still hear Alec breathing and tinkering around in the room so Magnus doesn’t think anything of it, even when he can tell the lights have turned on. “Okay, open your eyes.”

Slowly, Magnus opens his eyes, blinks a few times to let them adjust to the light and then he stares incredulous at the image before him. “Alexander.” He breathes, reaching a shaking hand out to press gently against the mirror’s surface, staring at the golden cat’s eyes staring back at him from his own face.

“You’re a warlock who has become a Nephilim. Like a mundane who has become a vampire, or a Shadowhunter who has become a werewolf. Your experiences don’t cease to exist, your life before your turning doesn’t suddenly stop mattering, you just begin to look at life from a different perspective.” Alec explains, stepping forward, appearing behind Magnus in the mirror. “I didn’t fall in love with you because you were a warlock. I fell in love with you because you were the most beautiful person in the room, with the biggest heart and the brightest mind. I fell in love with you because you showed me that happiness wasn’t something out of my reach. I fell in love with you because I couldn’t imagine a day going by without you in it. None of that has changed. You’re still the most beautiful person in any room you enter, you still have the biggest heart of anyone I know, the brightest mind. You’ve shown me every day that we’ve been together that happiness is something obtainable, if I’m willing to fight for it. I’m willing, I’m always willing, and I’ll never stop fighting for you.”

“Alexander.” Magnus exclaims, but can’t seem to find any words to follow, because he shakes his head, sniffling and letting out a breathless little laugh. He leans into Alec when the Shadowhunter wraps him up in his arms.

“Things are different now, but you still decide what type of person you want to be, that hasn’t changed.” Alec promises, resting his head on Magnus’ shoulder. “Also, if I ever, _ever_ do something you disagree with, you have to tell me. I only know what I’ve been taught by the Clave, Magnus, sometimes I don’t know that what I’m doing is wrong.”

“I know, that’s why I decided what I could accept from you.” Magnus answers, nodding his head and rubbing at his nose, sniffling a little. “I just… I don’t want to become the type of person I can see myself becoming. It’s-it’s so easy to lose your way.”

“You won’t, I promise, you won’t. I won’t let you. We’re in this together, for the rest of our lives.” Alec promises, pressing a kiss to Magnus’ neck, over where Magnus knows the accuracy rune is drawn, but he cannot see it past the glamour.

“Even if I wanted to become a vampire, so I could be immortal again?” Magnus asks, feels a spike of fear in his chest that he ruthlessly squashes down, if Alec won’t become a vampire, he won’t become one either. He already knows this, so he watches the multitude of emotions and thoughts cross over Alec’s face and he says nothing.

“Yes.” Alec finally answers, and Magnus lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in. “But you have to marry me, first, in a Shadowhunter ceremony.” Alec continues and the world seems to be so far away from Magnus in the few moments it takes for his ‘bright’ brain to process what Alec has told him.

“Did you just propose to me or-?” he starts to ask, eyes flickering to Alec’s in the mirror and he swallows thickly at the nervous little smile he sees on his lover’s face.

“I wasn’t going to, not yet, not with everything. But I’ve been thinking over the last few days, that with the life we lead, there’s probably never going to be a good time. The world will keep trying to end, and we’ll still be here trying to keep it spinning, and now there’s a chance you’ll actually say yes, without trying to discuss my mortality and it ending in an argument, so, I thought I should try.” Alec explains, gently, pulling away. Magnus watches in the mirror as his darling Shadowhunter dips elegantly down onto one knee and slips the Lightwood family ring off his finger, offering it up to Magnus, who turns around, his heart in his throat to see that the mirror hasn’t lied to him. “Magnus Bane, will you marry me?”

“ _Yes_.” He whispers, his voice cracking and giving out on him before he can even finish the word, and he wipes at his eyes uselessly as tears spill down his face. “And I would have said yes, even before we were both tied to the same fate.” He assures, as Alec gently slips the ring onto his finger, he sucks in a breath. “How come I’m always the one crying when we have these heart-to-hearts?” he asks with a mock glare as Alec pushes to his feet, the Shadowhunter laughing as he does so.

“Because Lightwoods don’t cry!” Alec proudly announces, pressing a chaste kiss to Magnus’ lips.

“That is a blatant lie! Izzy and I watched Hunger Games and she bawled like a baby when Rue died!”

“What? _Rue dies?_ ” Alec exclaims, sounding genuinely shocked and upset, Magnus hesitates, before shoving Alec who bursts into laughter again. “I love you.”

“I’m certain by now that you know I love you back.” Magnus answers, resting his forehead against Alec’s and breathing in deeply. ‘Now, we have to plan a wedding around Izzy’s withdrawals, Clary and Jace and Jonathan’s issues, the Werewolves and the Vampires going to war, the Seelie Queen being her charming self, the Clave attempting to butt their noses into our business, and, as we’ve already discussed, the world frequently trying to end.”

“Business as usual.” Alec agrees, before stealing a kiss. “We’ve got each other, we’ll be fine.”

“Yes, as long as we have each other, nothing can stop us.”

* * *

 _I have heard that winter's cold,_  
_Will give way to summer's warmth._  
_Oh no, like salt in the snow,_  
_I'm melted and left all alone,_  
_On the side of the road._  
  
_And I will wait for you to come again,_  
_And I can't pretend like I'm confident,_  
_And I can't pretend like it makes much sense,_  
_When it doesn't._  
~Classic Crime, Salt in the Snow


End file.
